


The Scariest Man in the Universe

by InsominiacArrest



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Humor, Canon Universe, Emotions, Fluff, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 11:54:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15388230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsominiacArrest/pseuds/InsominiacArrest
Summary: The team is mystified when they are confined in the Garrison for a debriefing/quarantine and find one of their leaders hiding under tables and behind fake ferns, avoiding a mysterious garrison officer.If Shiro's afraid than whoever he’s running from must be one of the scariest men in the universe.





	The Scariest Man in the Universe

**Author's Note:**

> whomst else is creating content for this character we do not know a single thing about lol  
> I love it

_Lance_

Lance was squinting at a potted plant. It was a tall fern with four fronds and a practical looking pot that seemed more for an office atmosphere than actual garden-lovers.

Lance cocks his head to the side, he squints harder.

He leans over toward Pidge, “Why is Shiro hiding behind a plant?” He whispers loudly to her.

Pidge glances up from her wrist communicator, and then over toward a white haired man crouching at the end of the hallway. She opens her mouth to answer and then just cocks her head to the side as well.

Shiro’s eyes dart back and forth, muscles seeming to tense.

“Huh.” Lance takes a step forward cautiously, mindfully, he didn’t want another Galra Meltdown- if that was still possible.

He opens his mouth, then he hears the hallway door open on the other side of the room.

A new voice calls out, “Shiro!”

Lance whips around just as another figure joins them, it was a young man with a medium-sized build, glasses, and wavy brown hair.

“Um?” Lance makes a face, “no visitors in the quarantine?”

Pidge adjusts her glasses and makes a face, “who are-”  
  
“Takashi!” The garrison officer calls again, loudly.  
  
He looks both directions, searching for something. Lance hears a slight stumbling from behind him and when he looks back to the garrison fern Shiro is gone.

“Okay.” Lance just crosses his arms over his chest. “Okay?”  
  
The young man disappears around the corner as well.

\---------------------

_Pidge_

“We should talk to him,” Pidge says quietly, frowning. They sit huddled at one of the garrison cafeteria tables, hovering in front of a discarded game of Go Fish. “At least ask him what he wants.”  
  
Hunk shrugs loosely from the place beside them, “are you sure? I mean, Shiro is the one running away from him.” He pauses and looks up, “And Shiro isn’t a big runner-away type.”

“Yeah,” Lance leans over the table himself, all sharp edges and right angles, he hums, “it’s weird.”  
  
Pidge puts her chin in her hands, “Shiro can be a little weird you know. And it’s not like we’re out on the front lines any more, it’s the garrison.”

Hunk shrugs again, “we’ve seen weirder stuff anyway.”  
  
Lance leans forward, “should we at least...Uh?” He points to across the room.

“Shiro!” The man was pacing up and down the corridor in view from the windows, turning his head back and forth, looking.

They all glance down, Hunk whispers, “Should we tell him Shiro’s hiding under the tables?”  
  
“No?”  
  
They keep waiting.

\-------------------

_Hunk_

 

“I think we should just assume Shiro has his reasons,” Hunk says with interest, “maybe the guy’s just bad news- Iverson’s son or something.”  
  
Lance snorts, “we’ve already met the baddest guy in the universe, how much worse could some punk in glasses be? I could even fight Iverson himself now.”  
  
Hunk laughs briefly before pausing, “wait,” He leans toward him, “you shouldn’t do that.” He catches his eyes, “But I’d definitely watch.”

“You got it buddy,” he winks with finger guns and Hunk leans back on the couch. “Right after we talk to that punk in glasses.”

Pidge adjusts her glasses and looks up, “But you know, us punks in glasses can be quite dangerous.” She gives a small smirk and Hunk watches Lance roll his eyes.

“Yeah, I’m shaking in my boots from the dude with a perm.” Lance shakes his head, “maybe just a quick, what’s your name, occupation, how do you know our leader-friend?”  
  
Both Pidge and Hunk hum, “okay, but next question,” Hunk winces, “do we have to? Because I’m like, on my seventh questioning from military guys.”  
  
Pidge nods too, “Shiro could just be avoiding another interview about his whole um,” she mimes an arm and then a slice motion.

Lance throws his hands in the air, “aren’t you guys at all curious about why this rando is walking the grounds yelling his name?”  
  
Hunk frowns, “Like I said, he could be bad news. Shiro of all people is afraid of him.”  
  
They all put their heads together murmuring when they hear the door swish open from the otherside of the common room. They all turn as Keith walks in, flattening his dark hair back and sighing.

“God, are you guys sick of this quarantine yet? Because I’m almost missing the constant running for our lives,” he shook his head.

Hunk raises his eyebrows, he opens his mouth to respond but a tell-tale voice interrupts.

“Shiro!” The young man yells in the distance, “get back here.”

They all stand up in time and Lance looks poised to jump, Pidge reaches for her confiscated bayard. “Does he need help?”  
  
Their battle training picks up but Keith just puts his hands up and looks over his shoulder, the young man streaks past and a series of hurried footsteps follows. “Oh,” Keith blinks back, “There’s Adam.”  
  
“Adam?” Hunk puts his hands up. “You know him too?”  
  
“Well,” Keith let’s the door slide shut behind him, “that’s more of a… Shiro’s story to tell.”

“Oh God,” Hunk dances from foot to foot, “don’t tell me he’s like, the second scariest man in the universe or something, I’m so sick of surprises.”  
  
Keith just snorts and lets out a brief laugh. “Scary, sure, if Shiro forgot to take his iron supplements before a mission or something.”  
  
Their eyebrows collectively raise, “go on.”  
  
“Uh,” Keith rubs the back of his neck, “again, not really my story to tell.”

They hear more hurried footsteps and running from behind the door.

“Does he need our help?”  
  
Keith just shrugs.

“Shiro!” Adam calls and Keith looks at the ceiling.

“They’ll figure it out.”  
  
\-------------------

_Shiro_

One arm. One burn. Two lacerations on his thigh, one scar across his nose. Five puncture marks across his ribs.

One arm. Scars. One entire body. And, of course… the hair.

Adam liked his hair, liked the course feel between his fingers and the way it fell on his face he said.

Adam liked a lot of things, parfaits, bad anime adaptations, shoes with off-brand names like ‘Nikil,’ time alone in his room playing rain sounds. Pissing off Iverson, telling him about his day, listening to Shiro talk about the next flight map.

Chinese food, not jogging, putting the keys in a homemade bowl.

Adam, Adam, Adam, Shiro would be lying if he said he hadn’t been thinking about him once a day since he left. He always thought it would fade, feelings would evaporate like an old dream and the clench in his chest would lessen. And it did when he was busy or dying or in entirely different plane of existence.

It helped, but this was a hell of a lot harder than being dead.

His leg was cramping as he crouched behind on office arm chair, teeth aching from grinding them, he ducked his head down and makes himself small. He would have just stayed in his assigned room all day, however, he heard a knock on his door this morning with a familiar voice. Adam was nothing if not persistent.

But so was Shiro- Keith was kept in school for a reason.

They would have probably both died of stubborness if Shiro hadn’t been the one to die first. And come back.

In a clone’s body. With no arm, dozens of scars, and bright unseemly hair.

There was no explaining that. Shiro began to crawl, he needed to get across the rest of the room and out the door again.

“Dammit Shiro!” He hears the voice at the otherside of the room, Shiro bounces to his feet and starts bolting again.

“Don’t make me get out out the jump rope and sticky glue- hey!”

He dives out the door and he can hear footsteps trailing after him. “I swear-”  
  
Luckily, Shiro was in the best shape of his life, all the anxiety-sweating and the fact that his clone double was clearly not skipping leg day before Shiro did a manual override.

There was no explaining that sentence either.

Shiro takes a sharp left turn, sees Lance and Keith in the hallway, internally groans and then takes another turn away from them. He had no idea what they were thinking about all this.

It doesn’t matter, he closes in the next portion of the garrison and only skids to a halt when he sees two bolted doors and a sign: pool closed for cleaning.

“Shit,” he feels the anxiety-sweats coming on.

He looks both directions, trying to find another exit just as the figure behind him closes in.

“Imma,” the person was gasping, “oh God, we are going to talk, then I’m going to pass out somewhere, hold still for a second.”

Shiro pauses.

Adam. Adam, Adam, Adam.  
  
Shiro takes his time turning around, he takes his time moving one inch, two, his thoughts short-circuiting and muscles twitching as he glacially tries to face the other direction. He’s hoping the minimal movement will throw Adam off and he might get bored and somehow leave.

Instead, he feels a pair of arms wrap around his middle and yank him forward.

“Oof,” someone squeezes him so hard he think he might pop.

“Fuck you,” he turns Shiro around and buries their face in his chest, “I have never been happier in my entire life, but also, fuck you.”  
  
The man’s voice was taut with emotion and Shiro can see the glint of wetness running down his cheeks, Adam wasn’t the type to cry.

But Shiro hadn’t planned on being the type to be declared deceased at age 25.

Every part of Shiro tenses, he wants to run again. This isn’t how he wanted to meet, this isn’t who Shiro wanted to be when he met him again.

“Adam…” He said softly and it felt like exhaling from the deepest part of himself. “Adam.” He gulps down the word just as his eyes start to prickle. “I can, I can explain.”  
  
He really couldn’t.

“It’s going to be okay,” he says instead.

Adam looks up, his expression swimming, “Goddammit.” He curses, “That’s the most Takashi thing I think you could say as our first words. Right now? Of all times.”

Shiro’s shoulders fall, “To be honest… I didn’t know what to say.” He says softly, evenly.

Adam gives the smallest smile, “ _no._ ” He says dramatically, “I thought you were just running for a sport all day.”

“Uh,” Shiro shifts from side to side, “It seemed like the thing to do… at the time.” He mumbles, Shiro wasn’t one for mumbling. But that also just seemed to be thing to do now too.  
  
Adam gives a wet laugh. “And here I thought your ghost would be vindictive.”  
  
Shiro’s eyebrows raise, “I’m not a- I mean, I’m not anymore.”  
  
Adam rests his forehead on his pectoral, he sighs deeply and puts a hand on his chest. “We’ll address that sentence in a second.”  
  
“I mean, it’s a little complica-” Adam uses his other hand to pinch his arm. “Ow!” Shiro jumps up and takes a step backward.

“That’s for running!”

Shiro rubs the spot, “I wasn’t running! I just wasn’t,” he looks down at his feet, “wasn’t ready.”

Adam wraps his arms around him again, “And this is for everything else.” He presses into him, arms grip him and pulling him close.

  
Shiro’s face heats up, he looks around, “I know, I mean. That declared me MIA. And… deceased.”  
  
“We held a funeral you know.” Adam says in a very small voice, still burying himself in him, “your mom was there.”  
  
Everything in Shiro leaks out of him all at once, “I’ll see her soon,” he takes a deep breath, “once they finish the quarantine. I’ll bring her favorite ice cream.”  
  
Adam looks up sharply, chin jutted out, eyes on fire, he takes a deep breath, “I knew your ghost would try to make me less pissed about all this.”  
  
Shiro’s shoulders untense, “you have every right to be pissed.” He opens and closes his mouth, “I know you told me not to go.”  
  
Adam squeezes him even more tightly, “God you’re big. Did you grow? I can’t believe you got even broader without me.”  
  
Shiro bites his bottom lip, “I missed you.” He says in equally small voice, face still heated from the body plastered against his front. It had been awhile, “but you know, the uh, hugging. After how we left things. It’s um.” He was doing the mumbling again.

Adam shakes his head, “I’m not letting go.” He says in a blazing voice, “you can pick me up and throw me or sprout a woody for all I care-”  
  
“Woah there!” He stands up completely straight, he had spent the last years trying to keep a lid on Lance making those types of jokes.  
  
“God,” Adam squeezes again and sniffs, “please say that again. And again. Say fucking anything.”  
  
Shiro leans down, he moves slowly, ever so slowly. His head descends like a cloud down onto a small village town, he closes his eyes and inhales into Adam’s hair. “Adam.” He finally says and they both exhale.

 _I’m not the same._ He wants to say, _I’m not who you used to know, inside or out._ I can’t do this.

But he lets himself rest like that, for a second, nose buried in his hair and bodies coming together. “I’m different.” He finally says in a crooked tin voice.  
  
“Yeah, I know,” Adam tilts his face up, “your a ghost come to haunt me like a sexy 90s movie. I’ve read how this goes.”  
  
Shiro breaks into a laugh before turning it into a cough the next second. “I’m really not a ghost.” _Not anymore at least._  
  
Adam gets on his tiptoes, his gaze steely, a challenge, “prove it.”  
  
Shiro’s heart speeds up, he can’t help it, he glances down at his mouth and then back up toward his eyes. Shiro licks his lips and fills a pull so great that he feels like he’ll be sucked in and left spinning for all entirety.  
  
He tries to pull back but only manages to keep himself in stasis.

Adam reaches up instead and his fingertips graze the bright white scar across Shiro’s nose, his expression folded and burning, “who did this to you?”  
  
Shiro opens his mouth and then closes it, “Would you believe space aliens?”  
  
Adam shakes his head furiously, “Yeah. I was told.” He says with a snarl in his tone, he still hadn’t let go. “I’m going to destroy them.”  
  
Shiro face goes slack, “by yourself?”  
  
Adam finally, finally, takes a step back from him, one hand still left touching his arm just so. “With my own two hands.”

Shiro shakes his head, “I kind of am part of war team that controls the most powerful weapon in the world. So don’t worry about it.”  
  
Adam lifts his chin up and reaches for his hair this time, “you shouldn’t have to.” He says in one breath, “I’m going to kick Iverson’s ass for sending you on that mission, and then everyone else's. The whole damn world.”  
  
Shiro flushes, “that’s… sweet?” He takes a deep breath and a smile twitches at the corner of his mouth, “I’ve missed you.”  
  
Adam’s expression relaxes, eyes fading from an absolute burn to just a kindle, “I hate you.” He says in a raw voice, “but I would kiss you so hard right now.”  
  
Shiro lifts his eyebrows, “would?”  
  
Adam just shakes his head, “I’ll wait.”  
  
Shiro makes a face at him, “If I remember correctly, and I do remember. Vividly. In color. That we broke up before I left.”  
  
Adam sighs deeply, “I’m just glad to see you.” He looks down at the floor for a second, “And like I said. I’ll wait. Besides, an old friend can’t kiss a zombie that’s back from the dead?”  
  
Shiro gives a low smile, “For a friend, maybe.” He know he shouldn’t tease, but it was easy with Adam.

Adam smiles back, “Did you learn any new techniques in space? The effects of space travel on the mouth maybe.” He says it with a slight drawl of his words, a little lewd at the edges.  
  
“Woah there.” Shiro says loudly and glances over Adam’s shoulder and sees two heads peeking around the corner, whispering.

He takes on Adam’s arm, “I’ve only been dead for a few months.”  
  
“Years,” Adam retorts with something hard in his tone. He shakes his head, relaxing again, “And I assume you learned some moves.”  
  
Shiro flushes, “I didn’t date anyone out there.”  
  
“Good,” Adam says hotly. “Less people’s asses to kick.”  
  
Shiro glances back at Keith and Lance observing them and then back to Adam, he should end this, but something gnaws at him. “Did you?” He asks gradually, words flowing down like slow boulders down a flat plain, “date anyone I mean.”

Adam grabs onto his arm again, “of course.”  
  
“Oh,” Shiro deflates quickly, a darkness boring out from inside him.

“And he’s way more handsome and brave and good and fool hardy than the last guy. Big too.”

Shiro felt like he was falling down a dark hole, “I hope you’re happ-”  
  
Adam gives him a light punch in the arm, “Of course not. You think I could find someone half as hot as the last one?” Adam’s face melts into something soft, “You think I could find anyone after that.”  
  
Shiro takes a step forward, “but we br-”  
  
Adam shakes his head, “We still are.” Shiro’s head falls down, “but I’d be kissing you right now if I could.” Adam reaches for his hand, “I’d be destroying galaxies right now if I could.”

Shiro gives a weak smile and lets their fingers intertwine, “this is why you’re not a paladin.”  
  
Adam just shrugs, “I heard you aren’t one either anymore? You better not be.”  
  
Shiro sighs, “I’m earthbound.”  
  
Adam wraps a hand around his waist. “Good. You have a lot of living-person-activities to pass in regards to your ghost-hood.”  
  
Shiro stands beside him, “is anyone of them involve dinner first?”  
  
Adam shakes his head, “You were always too smooth for me.”  
  
Shiro bites his lip, “I’m different.”  
  
“I noticed.”  
  
“I’m not sure if I’ll ever be…” He opens and closes his mouth weakly, trying to force the words out. _I’m not the guy you fell in love with._

Adam squeezes his hand so hard he’s afraid they might turn purple, “I guess we’ll have to get to know each other all over again. Do you remember our first flight mission together? Like that. With less clothes maybe.”  
  
Shiro rolls his eyes, “If I remember correctly we crashed the whole simulator. It took a week to fix.”

Adam starts dragging him to the other side of the hall, “But I was already thinking it, you know. Back then.”  
  
Shiro makes a face, “that I was bad at left turns?”  
  
Adam shakes his head, “I thought to myself ‘I want to keep seeing this person.’ Just your face, every day.”  
  
Shiro takes a deep breath, “do you still?”  
  
Adam leans over, he kisses the white streak cutting across his face, “always.”  
  
They start walking.

“Wait!” Lance calls out loudly from around the corner, “that’s Shiro’s boyfriend?”

“Let them have it out-” Keith says back.

“Did Shiro laugh at a sex joke? How is that possible. He doesn’t even know what that is.”  
  
They glance over, chuckle at each other and keep walking.


End file.
